How do I track pilot medicals, checkrides, and credential expirations across my whole operation?

Put every pilot's medical, checkrides, and credentials into one system of record, encode the FAA's calendar-month expiry rules, and run tiered 90/60/30-day alerts to both the pilot and a named compliance owner. Then tie credential status to scheduling — expired means unschedulable — and review one compliant/due/overdue roll-up for the whole operation every week.

Pilot credential and medical expiration tracking is hard because every credential runs on its own clock: medical certificates expire by class and pilot age, flight reviews run on 24-calendar-month cycles, and Part 135 and 121 checks have their own recurrence rules. In most operations those dates live in a mix of binders, spreadsheets, and someone's memory — which works until a pilot shows up for a trip with a medical that lapsed at the end of last month. The fix isn't more diligence; it's a structure where expirations surface themselves.

Why the answer is what it is

Keep one record per pilot — not one spreadsheet per credential

Every certificate, rating, medical class and expiry, flight review, checkride, and company qualification belongs in a single profile per pilot. The moment records split across a binder, a training spreadsheet, and an email thread, someone has to reconcile three sources to answer 'is this pilot legal today?' — and eventually nobody does.

Encode calendar-month expiry rules, not hand-typed dates

Most FAA credentials expire at the end of a calendar month, and medical duration depends on certificate class and the pilot's age. Hand-computing those dates into a spreadsheet is exactly where tracking errors are born. Derive each expiration from the rule itself, so a data-entry slip can't quietly ground a pilot — or worse, fail to.

Alert early, in tiers, to a named owner

Send 90-, 60-, and 30-day alerts to the pilot and to whoever owns compliance — chief pilot, director of operations, or training manager. Alerts that only reach the pilot get snoozed. Escalation to a named owner is what turns a reminder into a booked AME appointment or a scheduled checkride slot.

Tie credential status to the schedule

Tracking that doesn't touch scheduling is just documentation of the failure. If a medical or check is expired, the pilot should be unassignable in dispatch and the conflict visible to the scheduler. A system that enforces the rule beats a policy memo every time.

Run one whole-operation roll-up, kept audit-ready

You need a single view — compliant, due soon, overdue — across every pilot, instructor, and base, reviewed on a weekly cadence, with the underlying records exportable as one organized set when the FAA asks. This is the model AviationAlley is built around: a per-pilot credentials vault with expiry alerts, a Compliant-to-Due-to-Overdue compliance dashboard, and one-click FAA audit export.

What to look for

• List every credential type you must track: certificates, ratings, medicals, flight reviews, checkrides, company quals.
• Consolidate to one record per pilot; retire the parallel spreadsheets.
• Encode calendar-month expiry rules by medical class and pilot age.
• Set 90/60/30-day alerts to the pilot and a named compliance owner.
• Block scheduling and dispatch for anyone expired or overdue.
• Review the compliant/due/overdue roll-up weekly.
• Keep records exportable as one organized set for FAA audits.

Related questions

How far in advance should I flag an expiring pilot medical?

Start at 90 days for most credentials — that leaves room to book an AME appointment and absorb a deferral, which can take months to resolve. Escalate at 60 and 30 days, and treat the 30-day mark as a hard booking deadline, not another reminder.

Can a spreadsheet work for tracking pilot credentials?

It can for a handful of pilots with one disciplined owner, but it fails quietly as you grow: calendar-month math gets hand-entered, alerts don't exist, and nothing stops a scheduler from assigning an expired pilot. Most misses trace back to a stale spreadsheet nobody was formally assigned to maintain.

Does AviationAlley track pilot medicals and checkride currency?

It's built to — with a per-pilot credentials vault and expiry alerts, checkride and stage-check scheduling workflows, medical expiry alerts surfaced in client portals, and a compliance dashboard that rolls up compliant, due, and overdue items with one-click FAA audit export. AviationAlley is pre-launch, opening to a founding cohort of operators.

How Roffik addresses this

The platform for FAA-approved Part 142 training centers — simulator scheduling, FAA compliance records, client-account billing, and SWIFT wire reconciliation. Learn more about AviationAlley.